Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/29

Rh door. A gentleman who was there, who was always there, laughed out very loud. Her father, who had her in his arms, said to Moddle: "My dear woman, I'll settle you presently!" after which he repeated, showing his teeth more than ever at Maisie while he hugged her, the words for which her nurse had taken him up. Maisie was not at the moment so fully conscious of them as of the wonder of Moddle's sudden disrespect and crimson face; but she was able to produce them, in the course of five minutes, when, in the carriage, her mother, all kisses, ribbons, eyes, arms, strange sounds and sweet smells, said to her: "And did your beastly papa, my precious angel, send any message to your own loving mamma?" Then it was that she found the words spoken by her beastly papa to be, after all, in her little bewildered ears, from which, at her mother's appeal, they passed, in her clear, shrill voice, straight to her little innocent lips. "He said I was to tell you from him," she faithfully reported, "that you're a nasty horrid pig!"